Brian Luvera's Blog

Just like with any other painting you are most likely going to have to start with planning. With a garage it is a good idea to decide on a color which is more contemporary, and can handle a bit of dirt and does not turn grey because of the fumes from the car. You are not going to run it when the doors are closed, but there is always some tar and fumes that don’t get out before they hit the walls, and that makes them slowly turn grey. So when you are starting out, make sure that you carefully sand the walls, and wash them thoroughly to avoid any spots where the paint is not going to attach well.

For me the grey color is the easiest, since it fits in the color of my garage floor tiles and is easy to maintain – it won’t turn grey since it is already that color. When you are painting you should possibly use a paint that is designed for rough conditions. Also make sure that you cover the floor with newspapers to avoid any spilling on the new tiles…  When you need to use a primer then you need to use it. don’t go cheap here since this is the one room in the house which is used the most, and maintained the least.

Apply at least two coats, preferrably five and let the previous one dry out well before you add the second one. Just do a steady job and you are going to be fine.

If you are like me then your garage means a lot to you and you have to keep it shiny and good looking. You will never know when you have someone over who wants to see  your car, and for that you need to have a great garage to show it off. Also I do a lot of work on my car so I need to have a place where I can go when ever I want without being uncomfortable. The latest thing that I did to make it look a little better was changin the floor tiles, and pulling the old ones out was quite easy, since there were already tiles, but adding new ones needed some planning and here is what I did.

I needed to first make sure what kind of flooring was I looking for. I was not sure I needed to get tiles, and I was also looking at carpet and other synthetic materials. The thing is that I like tiles and I decided to get two different colors to make a nice pattern there. There are not much tools that are necessary and you most likely only need a rubber hammer, a chalk line and also knee pads to avoid hurting yourself. If you are not afraid of that, you can be sure that the pads are going to make the project are more enjoyable one.

With the tiles there is not going to be any adhesive, and you only need to lay them down and make sure that they are the correct size, so don’t get exited about the amount of work: it is going to be simple and a lot. Because of the interlocking you are going to need to carefully use the hammer to make sure that they are securely attached and basically you are done.

I have been waiting for this for a long time since my garage looks like a junkyard, well did before I installed my garage shelves to get it organized. It was quite a good amount of work that I had to put in to it but I did learn something from it. I made a few mistakes and that is stuff that I don’t want other people doing if they decide to install the shelves themselves, and that is why I am going to write a quick “how to” on installing shelves in your garage.

First off you are going to start planning. Make good plans on where you are going to put those shelves and how big you need them to be. Also make sure that it is possible to put them where you want then – there should be no wiring in the wall if you are going to attatch them to the wall, and no plumbing and airconditioning pipes going there. If there is you can probably work around them by cutting a matching hole in the shelves, for me there was no pipes so I did not have to worry about this.

The very next thing to think about are the tools that you are going to use. You don’t want to wake up durig the project that you don’t have all the tools that you need – that will drastically make your project longer. This happened to me, and I realised that I need a new saw to be able to cut the shelves in a proper angle. So if you have a garage which has weird angles and a concave ceiling then make sure that you prepare for everything. At the same time you should be thinking about the materials you are going to use. Many people go with metallic shelves since they are considered quite durable, but for me I did go with wooden ones, because of the fact that they are easy to handle. You can cut them in to shape and not worry about the durability going down. With metallic shelves there is the case they the sides are specially bent to give extra support to the shelf, so you can’t cut that. If you have pipes and stuff you are going to need to go with wooden shelves to be able to mold them in to your liking.

If you decide to get shelves that are standing on their own feet – instead of being attached to the wall, make sure that you assemble them correctly. Read the instructions carefully, since you can make big mistakes which might damage the shelves. If you misassemble them you are not going to get money back if they break.

Once you have your shelves ready, don’t overload them. Put the heaviest stuff on the bottom shelf, and stuff that you rarely use on the top shelf. That way you won’t constantly have to reach to the top and risk something falling on your head.